Mobile spam...

[BeoWulf]

I can't believe they are getting away with it. Its more than spam its highway robbery. Basically, someone else can sign you up for premium text messages (via web pages and the like) although I think this was them just fobbing me off and you have no recourse at all really. I ended up "registered" with two really bad joke services.. at £1.50 a pop, I was far from impressed. You can't block them, and the complaints authority is really really clunky and slow. The best you can hope for is your money back after quite a extended period and hell trying to ring the "helplines" of the services you never even wanted. Next time it happens im just gonna up and quit my contract.
Have you guys had any similar experiences?.

[mrbanana]

I got a new Orange contract last month. Activated it the day it arrived. Woke up in the morning with a spam txt.

(Now, I've never used text messaging before in my life. Don't know anything about it. I guessed the spam was like email spam, nothing you can do about it.)

When my first bill came a month later it it turns out I'd been charged £1.50 per text. 8 texts in total.

I phoned Orange up who told me to text the spammers back to cancel the texts and that they would cancel the charges.

I couldn't get the texting to work, phoned back and told a supervisor to sort it out as Orange had provided me with a new phone number already signed up to one of these spammer accounts. The supervisor wouldn't accept any responsibility even though I'd only used the phone once to my home number when the messages started coming in. The supervisor even told me to call the spammers at my own expense to sort it out if there were further problems, even though I have no contract with them, or any dealings with them.

In the end he walked me through texting these guys and it seemed to work. I haven't had any messages this week...so far.

I hated being a pain in the ass but Orange's response really pissed me off. Especially since the supervisor had told me what he thought had happened:

His assumption was that the number had been subscribed to the spammers by the previous owner. Then the contract had been cancelled and the number put on hold for 6 months. Any texts sent to that number were dumped by the system. The second I activated the sim the messages started coming through again and I got charged. Which was tough luck for me.

Does anyone think I was being unreasonable about asking Orange to sort it out themselves? Why should I have to sort it out? The way I see it they are the middlemen who charged me for the texts on my account, they're the guys who provide me with a dodgy phone number, but in the end they won't actively do anything about it or accept any responsibility.

[BeoWulf]

I had this number for 2 years before it started. The provider wont help you one bit, they kinda suck like that, wont even block the premium ones, best you can hope for is a change of number.
http://www.icstis.org.uk/
Thats the monitoring body, you can lodge a complaint with them.
Good Luck!.

[dom_xbox]

I keep getting msgs like "just got a video phone txt perv to XXXX for pics txt stop to XXXX)

hmm now if i had signed up for the txts i wouldnt care... im not sure if they cost to receive but id rather just let them send them than reply and risk them knowing they have a valid number... even though i reckon they have a recived report everytime they send out their spam.

[BeoWulf]

Check your next bill, at £1.50 they can be very costly to recieve. But it sounds like yours is a "feeler" to try and get you to sign up.

[dom_xbox]

Originally Posted by BeoWulf

Check your next bill, at £1.50 they can be very costly to recieve. But it sounds like yours is a "feeler" to try and get you to sign up.

Luckily Its the PAYG number they seem to have targeted.... hopefully when its run out of credit it wont be able to take anymore credit with recieving..

[BeoWulf]

If I remember correctly the network will keep hold of the messages waiting to deliver them. Then as soon as you shove some credit on, it would prolly milk it dry. But you probably arent getting charged for those ones.

[dom_xbox]

erm.. cheers for that Wulf... I did get scared one night my PPC started trying to conect to GPRS all by itself... must have just been trying to sync.. i use a dual sim holder and can only connect to it via my contract sim.. so the payg couldnt suck up my credit...